running PowerCLI on vCenter

I am a developer for a storage provider, we have a vcenter plugin, and I want to interrogate ESX health, using vmkping and a few other utilities to check some ESX config parameters.

Another forum suggested powerCLI as a possible solution, my questions are:

- can it run on both VCSA and windows version? (We support 6.5 and later VC).

- how can it authenticate to the ESX's?  Escrowing ESX passwords is likely a non-starter.

Thanks.